One day he was walking along a cobblestone road, the kind that presently looked orange and pink under the setting sun of Naples because the sky was that very colour and the cobblestone road had the uncanny habit of reflecting that which was upon it and over it. To his left, the whitewashed houses were in the shadows of large pines and the forms of doors and windows made them look like paintings of horrified people with their mouths and eyes opened quite wide. But the trees were not their oppressors, so he climbed one of them to get a better view over the harbour.

He got sap on his hands as he made his way up, dangerously high, but he didn't care. When he got to the top, he could see the disc of the sun, hovering, the dial-less clock face, a sailing boat in the water below acting as a pendulum that had forgotten to swing back. From this perspective, the doors and windows of the whitewashed houses quite far below became thin lines and now looked quite happy. He wiped his hands on his pants, and to the right, the hills rose up out of the two-dimensional flatness of the afternoon to the reality of the time between sleeplessness and sleep.

A hummingbird hovered before his closed eyes. Upon opening them, he was so surprised by its presence that he breathed sharply and fell. On his way down, the mountains disappeared behind the whitewashed houses whose doors and windows once again resembled paintings of horrified people and he looked at his hands and noticed the sap and he heard in his head the tick-tock of the ships at the dock rocking easily in the current under the sun whose demise drew nearer...

The cobblestones drew nearer and he felt a gust of wind as the hummingbird lifted him slowly toward the stars that had now became the glittering hair of the city.

As an Australian visiting the US, I found quite a few things strange about their culture. One thing that Americans do that Australians do not is clap at the end of a movie. Granted, in Hollywood there may be some chance of having someone involved with the production present, but it is unlikely.

One day, after climbing up a mountain in the late afternoon we sat down among other hikers who had made the climb, like us, for the promise of a spectacular sunset. While perhaps helped along by air pollution, the sunset was indeed spectacular. When the sun finally went down and the audience was left in dusk, they spontaniously began to clap, in appreciation at the end of the show.

THE river sleeps beneath the sky,
And clasps the shadows to its breast;The crescent moon shines dim on high;
And in the lately radiant west
The gold is fading into gray.
Now stills the lark his festive lay,
And mourns with me the dying day.

While in the south the first faint star
Lifts to the night its silver face,
And twinkles to the moon afar
Across the heaven's graying space,

Low murmurs reach me from the town,
As Day puts on her sombre crown,
And shakes her mantle darkly down.

The descent of the sun below the horizon; also, the time when the sun sets; evening. Also used figuratively.

'T is the sunset of life gives me mystical lore.
Campbell.

2.

Hence, the region where the sun sets; the west.

Sunset shellZool., a West Indian marine bivalve (Tellina radiata) having a smooth shell marked with radiating bands of varied colors resembling those seen at sunset or before sunrise; -- called also rising sun.